Talk:KThxBye/@comment-5261392-20180117211108
My curiosity got the best of me and I read about Angela’s return on Girl Meets World. I had already known that she came back for an episode, announced she was married, and then Shawn and Katy ended up together. When I heard people talk about how the writers did Angela dirty, I never quite understood what they meant - until now. After finishing my rewatch of Boy Meets World and reading what happened on GMW, I am pissed. Angela and Shawn/Angela deserved SO much better. Shawngela was always overshadowed by Cory and Topanga’s lifelong, epic relationship. Don’t mistake me, I LOVE Corpanga and they’re an OTP, but between the two of them, Shawngela was by far the more realistic couple. Cory and Topanga were best friends from when they were little kids, grew up together, fell in love, got married, and had two children. They had their happily ever after, written in the stars romance from the first episode. This isn’t to say they didn’t have problems, but any issues they have were quickly solved. Topanga is moving to Pittsburg? No worries, she has an aunt in Philadelphia who’ll house her so she can stay with Cory. Cory cheated and developed feelings for another girl? They were broken up for a few days, but realized that they couldn’t live without each other and no other partner would measure up to the insurmountable love they’ve always had for one another. Shawn and Angela were not so lucky. For starters, the two of them had emotional baggage - they were both abandoned by their mothers (and in Shawn’s case, his father) and these deep seated abandonment issues prevented them from wanting to be in long term, committed relationships out of fear of rejection and loss. They grew up feeling like outsiders - Shawn lived in a trailer park and Angela was a military brat. They had a lot of ups and downs - makeups, break ups, and a lot of “I don’t know how I feel or what I want.” They didn’t have the privilege of knowing each other their whole lives and being able to so easily fall in love, overcoming any obstacles. However, despite their struggles, they still were a beautiful couple that is just as deserving of love, adoration, and respect as Corpanga is. They had an incredibly positive influence on one another. Angela was so supportive of Shawn - she was there for him for his alcoholism, his father dying, college applications, and all of his emotional issues that prevented him from wanting to be in a committed relationship in the first place. He valued her as the creative, passionate, witty, and intelligent girl she was. They helped each other work on their flaws while highlighting the many good qualities they had individually and together. Not to mention, they were incredibly progressive and groundbreaking. They were an interracial couple consisting of a white man and black woman on a predominantly white TV show in the 90’s. This source of representation was HUGE. Unfortunately, black women are so often portrayed as being undesirable and unworthy. It’s ingrained in their mind from a young age that they’re harder to love and be wanted when compared to their white (passing) peers - this is prevalent in real life and in media. Many black girls have said that Shawngela meant the world to them growing up. To have Angela - this strong, independent black girl - date a popular white boy while still having her own thoughts, dreams, goals, aspirations, and personality was a huge progressive step in the right direction. Unfortunately, GMW screwed all that up. I understand that not every couple is going to end up together, especially couples that dated in high school. I could appreciate Shawngela not being endgame because it was unrealistic; HOWEVER, they completely invalidated Shawn and Angela’s love story and erased Angela’s importance in favor of Shaty. Shawn loved Angela because she understood who he was; because she always supported him and believed in him when no one else was; because they shared so many similarities in interests, passions, life experiences, and hardships; because even after he broke up with her, he wrote poetry about how he still loved her - there were so many reasons why Shawn loved Angela. Shawn didn’t love Angela because he felt like he *had* too. He never felt obligated to love Angela because he thought he was supposed to want a relationship like Cory and Topanga’s. Yet that’s what GMW told us. They painted Angela as a villain - someone Shawn wasn’t “really” in love with but rather, felt he HAD to love to imitate his best friend’s relationship. Someone who abandoned Shawn like so many others had - meanwhile, she just wanted to spend time with her father and believed that Shawn had accepted that. The short clip where Angela comes back only to tell Shawn that she’s married was a slap in the face. The way the others talked about her as if she wasn’t Topanga and Cory’s friend as well, that she was only yet another person who left Shawn and someone he never really loved, someone who was used to prop up Shawn/Katy, was disrespectful on so many levels. Despite what GMW wants to tell us, Shawn and Angela had a beautiful, groundbreaking relationship. In my heart, they deserved to be endgame.